THE FAIRY QUEEN
I have said that Simon Perkins was a painter to the tips of his
fingers. Just as a carpenter cannot help looking at a piece of wood
with a professional glance it is impossible to mistake--a glance that
seems to embrace at once its length, depth, thickness, toughness,
and general capabilities--so a painter views every object in nature,
animate or inanimate, as a subject for imitation and study of his art.
The heavens are not too high, the sea too deep, nor the desert too
wide to afford him a lesson; and the human countenance, with its
endless variety of feature and expression, is a book he never wearies
of learning by heart. When his professional interest in beauty is
enhanced by warmer feelings, it may be imagined that vanity could
require no fuller tribute of admiration than the worship of one whose
special gift it is to decide on the symmetry of outward form.
As a painter, Simon Perkins approved of Nina Algernon--as a man he
loved her. Lest his position should not prove sufficiently fatal, she
had become of late practically identified with his art, almost as
completely as she was mixed up with his every-day life. For many
months, perhaps even for years, the germ of a great work had taken
root in his imagination. Slowly, almost painfully, that germ developed
itself, passing through several stages, sketch upon sketch, till it
came to maturity at last in the composition of a large picture on
which he was now employed.
The subject afforded ample scope for liberty of fancy in form and
grouping--for the indulgence of a gorgeous taste in colouring and
costume. It represented Thomas the Rhymer in Fairyland, at the moment
when its glamour is falling from his eyes, when its magic lustre is
dying out on all that glittering pageantry and the elfin is fading to
a gnome. The handsome wizard turns from a crowd of phantom shapes,
half lovely, half grotesque--for their change is even now in
progress--to look wistfully and appealingly on the queen.
There is a pained expression in his comely features, of hurt
affection, and trust betrayed, yet not without a ray of pride and
triumph, that, come what might to the others, she is still unchanged.
Around him the fairies are shedding their glory as trees in autumn
shed their leaves. Here a sweet laughing face surmounts the hideous
body of an imp, there the bright scales of an unearthly armour shrivel
to rottenness and dust. The dazzling robes are turning blank and
colourless, the emerald rays waning to a pale, sad light, the flashing
diadem is dulled and dim. Yet on the fairy queen there lowers no
shadow of change, there threaten no symptoms of decay.
Bathed in the halo of a true though hapless love, she is still
the same as when he first saw her all those seven long years ago,
glistening in immortal charms, and knelt to her for the queen of
heaven, where she rode--"under the linden tree."
It is obvious that on her countenance, besides the stamp of exceeding
beauty, there must appear sorrow, self-reproach, fortitude, majesty,
and undying tenderness. All these the painter thought he read in Nina
Algernon's girlish face.
So she sat to him dutifully enough for a model of his fairy queen, and
if she wearied at times, as I think she must, comforted herself with
the remembrance that in this way she helped the family who gave her
bread.
For the convenience of sitters, Simon Perkins had his painting-room in
Berners Street: thither it was his custom to resort in the morning,
by penny steamer or threepenny omnibus, and there he spent many happy
hours working hard with palette and brush. Not the least golden seemed
those in which Nina accompanied him to sit patiently while he studied,
and drew her, line by line, feature by feature. The expeditions to and
fro were delightful, the labour was pleasure, the day was gone far too
soon.
A morning could not but be fine, when, emerging from an omnibus at
Albert Gate, Simon walked by the side of his model through Hyde Park
on their way to Berners Street; but about this period one morning
seemed even finer than common, because that Nina, taking his arm as
they crossed Rotten Row, thought fit to confide to him an interview of
the day before with Aunt Jemima, in which she extorted from that dear
old lady with some difficulty the fact of her own friendless position
in the world.
"And I don't mind it a bit," continued the girl, catching her voice
like a child, as was her habit when excited, "for I'm sure you're all
so kind to me that I'd much rather not have any other friends. And I
don't want to be independent, and I'll never leave you, so long as
you'll keep me. And O, Simon, isn't it good of your aunts, and you
too, to have taken care of me ever since I was quite a little thing?
For I'm no relation, you know--and how can I ever do enough for you? I
can't. It's impossible. And you don't want me to, if I could!"
Notwithstanding the playful manner which was part of Nina's self,
there were tears of real feeling in her eyes, and I doubt if Simon's
were quite dry while he answered--
"You belong to us just as much as if you _were_ a relation, Nina. My
aunts have said so ever since I can remember, and as for me, why you
used to ride on my foot when you were in short frocks! What a little
romp it was! Always troublesome, and always will be--and that's
why we're so fond of you." He spoke lightly, but his voice shook
nevertheless.
"So you ought to be," she answered. "For you know how much I love you
all."
"What, even stern Aunt Jemima?" said this blundering young man,
clumsily beating about the bush, and thus scaring the bird quite as
much as if he had thrust his hand boldly into the nest.
"Aunt Jemima best of all," replied Nina saucily, "because she's the
eldest, and tries to keep me in order, but she can't."
"And which of us next best, Nina?" continued he, turning away with
extraordinary interest in a mowing-machine.
"Aunt Susannah, of course." This very demurely, while tightening her
pretty lips to keep back a laugh.
"Then I come last," he observed gently; but there was something in the
tone that made her glance sharply in his face.
She pressed his arm. "You dear old simple Simon," said she kindly.
"Surely you must know me by this time. I love you very dearly, just as
if you were my brother. Brother, indeed! I don't think if I'd a father
I could be much fonder of him than I am of you."
What a bright morning it had been five minutes ago, and now the sky
seemed clouded all at once. Simon even thought the statue of Achilles
looked more grim and ghostly than usual, lowering there in his naked
bronze.
She had wounded him very deeply, that pretty unconscious archer. These
random shafts for which no interposing shield makes ready are sure
to find the joints in our harness. A tough hard nature such as
constitutes the true fighter only presses more doggedly to the front,
but gentler spirits are fain to turn aside out of the battle, and go
home to die. There came a dimness before Simon's eyes, and a ringing
in his ears. He scarcely heard his companion, while she asked--
"Who are those men bowing? Do you know them? They must take me for
somebody else."
"Those men bowing" were two no less important characters than Lord
Bearwarden and Tom Ryfe, the latter in the act of selling the former
a horse. Such transactions, for some mysterious reason, always take
place in the morning, and whatever arguments may be adduced against
a too enthusiastic worship of the noble animal, at least it promotes
early rising.
Tom Ryfe was one of those men rarely seen in the saddle or on the box,
but who, nevertheless, always seem to have a horse to dispose of,
whatever be the kind required. Hack, hunter, pony, phaeton-horse, he
was either possessor of the very animal you wanted, or could suit you
with it at twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident
riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted by
a friend; if you saw him driving a team--and few could handle four
horses in a crowded thoroughfare with more neatness and precision--you
might safely wager it was from the box of another man's coach.
He was supposed to be a very fine rider over a country, and there were
vague traditions of his having gone exceedingly well through great
runs on special occasions; but these exploits had obviously lost
nothing of their interest in the process of narration, and were indeed
enhanced by that obscurity which increases the magnitude of most
things, in the moral as in the material world.
Mr. Ryfe knew all the sporting men about London, but not their wives.
He was at home on the Downs and the Heath, in the pavilion at Lord's,
and behind the traps of the Red House. He dined pretty frequently at
the barracks of the household troops, welcome to the genial spirits
of his entertainers, chiefly for those qualities with which they
themselves credited him; and he called Bearwarden "My lord," wherefore
that nobleman thought him a snob, and would perhaps have considered
him a still greater if he had _not_. The horse in question showed
good points and fine action. Mr. Ryfe walked, trotted, cantered,
and finally reined him up at the rails on which Lord Bearwarden was
leaning.
"Rather a flat-catcher, Tom," said that nobleman, between the whiffs
of a cigar. "Too much action for a hunter, and too little body. He
wouldn't carry my weight if the ground was deep, though he's not a bad
goer, I'll admit."
"Exactly what I said at first, my lord," answered Tom, slipping the
reins through his fingers, and letting the horse reach over the iron
bar against his chest to crop the tufts of grass beneath, an attitude
in which his fine shoulders and liberty of frame showed to great
advantage. "I never thought he was a fourteen-stone horse, and I never
told you so."
"And I never told _you_ I rode fourteen stone, did I?" replied Lord
Bearwarden, who was a little touchy on that score. "Thirteen five at
the outside, and not so much as that after deer-stalking in Scotland.
He's clean thoroughbred, isn't he?"
The purchaser was biting, and Tom understood his business as if he had
been brought up to it.
"Clean," he answered, passing his leg over the horse's neck, and
sliding to the ground, thus leaving his saddle empty for the other.
"But he's thrown away on a heavy man. His place is carrying thirteen
stone over high Leicestershire. Nothing could touch him there amongst
the hills. Jumping's a vulgar accomplishment. Plenty of them can jump
if one dare ride them, but he's really an extraordinary fencer. Such a
mouth, too, and such a _gentleman_! Why he's the pleasantest hack in
London. You like a nice hack, my lord. Get up and feel him. It's like
riding a bird."
So Lord Bearwarden jumped on, and altered the stirrups, and crammed
his hat down, ere he rode the horse to and fro, trying him in all
his paces, and probably falling in love with him forthwith, for he
returned with a brightened eye and higher colour to Tom Ryfe on the
footway.
It was at this juncture both gentlemen started and took their hats off
to the lady who walked some fifty paces off, arm-in-arm with Simon
Perkins, the painter.
Their salute was not returned. The lady, indeed, to whom it was
addressed seemed to hurry on all the faster with her companion. It was
remarkable, and both remarked it, that neither made any observation on
this lack of courtesy, but finished their bargain without apparently
half so much interest in sale or purchase as they felt five minutes
ago.
"You'll dine with us, Tom, on the 11th?" said Bearwarden, when they
parted opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, but he was obviously thinking
of something else.
"On the 11th," repeated Tom--"delighted, my lord--at eight o'clock,
I suppose," and turned his horse's head soberly towards Piccadilly,
proceeding at a walk, as one who revolved certain reflections, not of
the most agreeable, in his mind. A dinner at the barracks was usually
rather an event with Mr. Ryfe, but on the present occasion he forgot
all about it before he had gone a hundred yards.
Lord Bearwarden, rejecting the temptation of luncheon in the
mess-room, ran up-stairs to his own quarters to think--of course he
smoked at the same time.
This nobleman was one of the many of his kind who, to their credit be
it said, are not spoiled by sailing down the stream with the wind in
their favour. He had been "a good fellow" at Eton, he remained "a good
fellow" in the regiment. With general society he was not perhaps quite
so popular. People said he "required knowing"; and for those who
didn't choose to take the trouble of knowing him he was a little
reserved; with men, even a little rough. His manner was of the world,
worldly, and gave the idea of complete heartlessness and _savoir
faire_; yet under this seemingly impervious covering lurked a womanly
romance of temperament, a womanly tenderness of heart, than which
nothing would have made him so angry as to be accused of possessing.
His habits were manly and simple, his chief ambition was to
distinguish himself as a soldier, and so far as he could find
opportunity he had seen service with credit on the staff. A keen
sportsman, he could ride and shoot as well as his neighbours, and
this is saying no little amongst the young officers of the Household
Brigade.
Anything but a "ladies' man," there was yet something about
Bearwarden, irrespective of his income and his coronet, that seemed
to interest women of all temperaments and characters. They would turn
away from far handsomer, better dressed, and more amusing people to
attract his notice when he entered a room, and the more enterprising
would even make fierce love to him on further acquaintance,
particularly after they discovered what up-hill work it was. Do they
appreciate a difficulty the greater trouble it requires to surmount,
or do they enjoy a scrape the more, that they have to squeeze
themselves into it by main force? I wonder if the sea-nymphs love
their Tritons because those zoophytes must necessarily be so cold! It
is doubtless against the hard impenetrable rock that the sea-waves
dash themselves again and again. Bearwarden responded but faintly to
the boldest advances. There must be a reason for it, said the fair
assailants. Curiosity grew into interest, and, flavoured with a dash
of pique, formed one of those messes with which, in stimulating their
vanity, women fancy they satisfy their hunger of the heart.
Bearwarden was a man with a history; of this they were quite sure, and
herein they were less mistaken than people generally find themselves
who jump to conclusions. Yes, Bearwarden had a history, and a sad one,
so far as the principal actor was concerned. Indeed he dared not
think much about it even yet, and drove it--for he was no weak, silly
sentimentalist--by sheer force of will out of his mind. Indeed, if it
had not wholly changed his _real_ self, it had encrusted him with that
hardness and roughness of exterior which he turned instinctively to
the world. The same thing had happened to him that happens to most of
us at one time or another. Just as the hunting man, sooner or later,
is pretty sure to be laid up with a broken collar-bone, so in the
career of life must be encountered that inevitable disaster which
results in a wounded spirit and a sore heart. The collar-bone, we all
know, is a six weeks' job; but injuries of a tenderer nature take
far longer to heal. Nevertheless, the cure of these, too, is but a
question of time, though, to carry on the metaphor, I think in
either case the hapless rider loses some of the zest and dash which
distinguished his earlier performances, previous to discomfiture.
"Only a woman's hair," wrote Dean Swift on a certain packet hidden
away in his desk. And thus a very dark page in Lord Bearwarden's
history might have been headed "Only a woman's falsehood." Not much to
make a fuss about, surely; but he was kind, generous, of a peculiarly
trustful disposition, and it punished him very sharply, though he
tried hard to bear his sorrow like a man. It was the usual business.
He had attached himself to a lady of somewhat lower social standing
than his own, of rather questionable antecedents, and whom the world
accepted to a certain extent on sufferance, as it were, and under
protest, yet welcomed her cordially enough, nevertheless. His
relations abused her, his friends warned him against her; of course
he loved her very dearly, all the more that he had to sacrifice many
interests for her sake, and so resolved to make her his wife.
For reasons of her own she stipulated that he should leave his
regiment, and even in this, though he would rather have lost an arm,
he yielded to her wish.
The letter to his colonel, in which he requested permission to send in
his papers, actually lay sealed on the table, when he received a note
in a well-known hand that taught him the new lesson he had never
expected to learn. The writer besought his forgiveness, deploring her
own heartlessness the while, and proceeded to inform him that there
was a Somebody else in the field to whom she was solemnly promised
(just as she had been to him), and with whom she was about to unite
her Lot--capital L. She never could be happy, of course, but it was
her destiny: to fight against it was useless, and she trusted Lord B.
would forget her, etc., etc. All this in well-chosen language, and
written with an exceedingly good pen.
It was lucky his letter to the colonel had not been sent. In such
sorrows as these a soldier learns how his regiment is his real home,
how his comrades are the staunchest, the least obtrusive, and the
sincerest of friends.
Patting his charger's neck at the very next field-day, Bearwarden
told himself there was much to live for still; that it would be
unsoldierlike, unmanly, childish, to neglect duty, to wince from
pleasure, to turn his back on all the world had to offer, only because
a woman followed her nature and changed her mind.
So he bore it very well, and those who knew him best wondered he cared
so little: and all the while he never heard a strain of music, nor
felt a ray of sunshine, nor looked on beauty of any kind whatever,
without that gnawing cruel pain at his heart. Thus the years passed
on, and the women of his family declared that Bearwarden was a
confirmed old bachelor.
When he met Miss Bruce at Lady Goldthred's, no doubt he admired her
beauty and approved of her manner, but it was neither beauty nor
manner, nor could he have explained what it was, that caused the
pulses within him to stir, as they stirred long ago--that brought back
a certain flavour of the old draught he had quaffed so eagerly, to
find it so bitter at the dregs. Another meeting with Maud, a dance
or two, a whisper on a crowded staircase, and Lord Bearwarden told
himself that the deep wound had healed at last; that the grass was
growing fresh and fair over the grave of a dead love; that for him
too, as for others, there might still be an interest in the chances of
the great game.
Surely the blind restored to sight is more grateful, more joyous, more
triumphant, than he who, born in darkness, finds himself overwhelmed
and dazzled with the glare of his new gift!
Some men are so strangely constituted that they like a woman all the
better for "snubbing" them. Lord Bearwarden had never felt so grave
an interest in Miss Bruce as when he entered the barracks under the
impression she had cut him dead, without the slightest pretext or
excuse.
Not so Tom Ryfe. In that gentleman's mind mingled the several
disagreeable sensations of surprise, anger, jealousy, and disgust. Of
these he chewed the bitter cud while he rode home, wondering with whom
Miss Bruce could thus dare to parade herself in public, maddened at
the open rebellion inferred by so ignoring his presence and his love,
vowing to revenge himself without delay by tightening the curb and
making her feel, to her cost, the hold he possessed over her person
and her actions. By the time he reached his uncle's house, he had
made up his mind to demand an explanation, to come to a final
understanding, to assert his authority, and to avenge his pride. He
turned pale to see Maud's monogram on the envelope of a letter that
had arrived during his absence; paler still, when from this letter a
thin slip of stamped paper fluttered to the floor--white to the very
lips while he read the sharp, decisive, cruel lines that accounted for
its presence in the missive, and that bade him relinquish at a word
all the hope and happiness of his life. Without unbuttoning his coat,
without removing the hat from his head, or the gloves from his hands,
he sat fiercely down, and wrote his answer.
"You think to get rid of me, Miss Bruce, as you would get rid of an
unsuitable servant, by giving him his wages and bidding him to go
about his business. You imagine that the debt between us is such as a
sum of money can at once wipe out: that because you have been able to
raise this money (and how you did so I think I have a right to ask)
our business connection ceases, and the _lover_, inconvenient, no
doubt, from his priority of claim, must go to the wall directly the
_lawyer_ has been paid his bill. You never were more mistaken in your
life. Have you forgotten a certain promise I hold of yours, written in
your own hand, signed with your own signature, furnished, as itself
attests, of your own free will? and do you think I am a likely man to
forego such an advantage? You might have had me for a friend--how dear
a friend I cannot bear to tell you now. If you persist in making me an
enemy, you have but yourself to blame. I am not given to threaten; and
you know that I can generally fulfil what I promise. I give you fair
warning then: so surely as you try, in the faintest item, to elude
your bargain, so surely will I cross your path, and spoil your game,
and show you up before the world. Mine you are, and mine you shall be.
If of free will, happily; if not, then to your misery and my own. But,
mark me, always _mine_!"
"The wisest clerks are not the wisest men." It is a bad plan ever to
drive a woman into a corner; and with all his knowledge of law, I
think Mr. Ryfe could hardly have written a more ill-advised and
injudicious letter than the above to Miss Bruce.